By Dipak Kurmi
“If you break it, you own it.” The oft-quoted warning attributed to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell during the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War has returned with unsettling clarity after the audacious capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by America’s elite Delta Forces on Saturday, January 3. The operation, unprecedented in its scale and symbolism in the contemporary era, has forced the world to confront an uncomfortable question: has the United States crossed a line from coercive diplomacy into outright ownership of another nation’s fate? The echoes of Iraq are impossible to ignore, not merely because of the military audacity involved, but because of the deeper logic underpinning the action, one that blends ideology, force, and resource control into a volatile mix.
President Donald Trump, who rose to power partly by denouncing the Iraq War as a disastrous misadventure and promising to position himself as a peacemaker, has now dramatically overturned that narrative. Speaking at a briefing on Sunday, Trump justified the operation against Venezuela by invoking a foreign policy doctrine that dates back more than two centuries. He cited the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which warned European powers against interfering in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere, presenting his actions as part of a long-standing American strategic tradition. In doing so, Trump not only revived a doctrine that had long been relegated to the margins of policy debate, but also rebranded it in his own unmistakable style as the “Don-roe Doctrine,” signalling both ownership and reinterpretation.
For decades, successive administrations in Washington had sought to distance themselves from the Monroe Doctrine, aware of its association with interventionism and imperial overreach in Latin America. While it began as a defensive and largely symbolic declaration by President James Monroe, it gradually evolved into a justification for American dominance over Central and South America. Over time, it became a convenient alibi for political interference, covert operations, and military interventions, often at the expense of democratic institutions in the region. Trump’s decision to resurrect this doctrine, first signalled in the new US National Security Strategy released last month, marks a decisive and worrying shift back toward overt hemispheric dominance.
This revival is not an isolated event but part of a broader pattern that has defined Trump’s second term so far. Over the past year, the United States has demonstrated a growing willingness to deploy military force across multiple theatres. In just the past week, Trump ordered airstrikes on Syria and Nigeria, while also threatening intervention in Iran following widespread demonstrations in Tehran. Earlier in 2025, US forces targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, attacked drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean, struck Houthi rebel positions in Yemen, carried out operations against militants in Somalia, and bombed Islamic groups in Iraq. Seen in this context, Venezuela is not an anomaly but the latest and most dramatic expression of an increasingly muscular foreign policy.
The question of why Venezuela became the focal point of such an aggressive intervention, however, is not difficult to answer. Venezuela sits atop the largest proven crude oil reserves on the planet. According to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration, the South American nation holds over 300 billion barrels of crude oil, roughly a fifth of the world’s total proven reserves. Yet despite this extraordinary endowment, Venezuela’s actual oil production is strikingly low. The country currently produces around one million barrels per day, accounting for just 0.8 percent of global crude output. Years of sanctions, economic collapse, institutional decay, and underinvestment have left its oil industry a shadow of its former self.
Oil has been central to Trump’s rhetoric from the outset of the operation. On Saturday, he announced that the United States would take control of Venezuela’s oil reserves and deploy American companies to invest billions of dollars in refurbishing the country’s battered energy infrastructure. Speaking at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump said that the world’s largest American oil companies would step in to fix what he described as badly broken oil infrastructure and restore production. Chevron, notably, remains the only major American oil company with existing exposure to Venezuelan crude, highlighting both the opportunity and the challenge involved in such a takeover.
Critics have been blunt in their assessment of these moves. Youssef Kobo, founder of the Antwerp-based advocacy body ASATT-EU, argued that any analysis of the invasion that ignores Venezuela’s oil reserves is willfully distorting the truth. In his words, the operation amounted to straight-up theft, thinly veiled in the language of security and legality. Other analysts suggested that the dramatic action against Maduro also served a domestic political purpose, diverting attention from the controversy surrounding the Epstein files, which have continued to haunt Trump’s administration.
Understanding the gravity of Trump’s invocation of the Monroe Doctrine requires an appreciation of its historical role. Initially articulated as a warning to European colonial powers, the doctrine gradually morphed into a declaration that the Americas were a US sphere of influence. Between 1898 and 1994, the United States intervened to change governments in Latin America at least 41 times, often under the pretext of protecting its interests or countering communism. These interventions left a legacy of instability, authoritarianism, and deep resentment across the region. While many recent administrations had sought to move beyond this legacy, Trump has now conclusively reversed that trajectory, aligning himself openly with a vision of American dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
This posture is consistent with Trump’s broader ideological preferences in the region. He has openly supported right-leaning governments, such as the current administration in Argentina, while opposing left-wing leadership in countries like Brazil. Venezuela, governed by a socialist regime that has long been at odds with Washington, thus fits neatly into Trump’s worldview. Yet this aggressive reassertion of influence raises questions not only abroad but also at home, particularly among Trump’s own political base.
Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement was built in large part on a promise to end what he described as America’s never-ending wars. The idea of avoiding new military entanglements and refraining from putting boots on the ground overseas resonated deeply with voters weary of the human and financial costs of foreign interventions. The events in Venezuela threaten to undermine that promise. Trump has claimed that a team including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth will work with Venezuelans to take control of the country and oversee a transition. He went so far as to say that the United States would run Venezuela until a safe and proper transition could be achieved, without clarifying what such governance would entail.
This prospect has triggered visible unease within the MAGA camp. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a staunch Trump loyalist, publicly condemned the intervention, expressing disgust at what she described as America’s never-ending military aggression. She argued that Americans are forced to pay for foreign wars while both major parties keep the military machine running, and that this was precisely what many MAGA supporters believed they were voting to end. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie echoed these concerns, questioning the shifting legal justifications for Maduro’s arrest and contrasting claims about weapons and cocaine trafficking with Trump’s remarks about reclaiming confiscated US oil and stopping fentanyl production.
How the situation in Venezuela will ultimately unfold remains deeply uncertain. It is unclear whether the United States intends to become an occupying force or to install a leader acceptable to Washington. Trump suggested at one point that Venezuela’s Vice President and current interim President, Delcy Rodríguez, had agreed to cooperate with the US in running the country. Rodríguez swiftly rejected this narrative, delivering a televised address denouncing what she described as an attack on Venezuelan sovereignty. Her response underscored the volatility of the political landscape and the absence of any clear internal consensus.
The viability of Venezuela’s remaining government structures is now an open question. With Maduro removed, the balance of power among civilian leaders, the military, and political factions will be tested. Organising a political transition or consolidating external control without troops on the ground will be extraordinarily difficult, particularly if the primary objective is access to oil and other resources. Any fractures within the ruling establishment could lead to further instability or a contested regime change, outcomes that would complicate US ambitions rather than simplify them.
The role of the opposition further complicates the picture. Venezuela’s presidential election in July last year, held to choose a leader for a six-year term beginning on January 10, 2025, remains a central unresolved issue. While Maduro claimed victory and sought a third consecutive term, substantial evidence presented by opposition groups and independent observers suggested that Edmundo González won by a wide margin. The leading opposition figure, María Corina Machado, had earlier been barred from contesting and later went into exile, despite eventually winning the Nobel Prize. Machado backed González, yet Trump dismissed her prospects of leading Venezuela during his press conference, leaving her future role uncertain.
As events continue to unfold, Venezuela stands at a crossroads shaped by force, ideology, and oil. The next few weeks will determine whether Trump’s gamble results in a managed transition, a prolonged entanglement, or a descent into deeper chaos. What is already clear is that the capture of Maduro has resurrected old doctrines and older warnings, reminding the world that when great powers break nations in pursuit of their interests, ownership of the consequences is rarely optional.
(The writer can be reached at dipakkurmiglpltd@gmail.com)
